Mass Effect The Helmsman's Love

Joker watched over his shoulder as Arianna Shepard walked through the airlock. The dog tags in her hands jingled together. There was something off about her now that she was back on the ship. Something very wrong.

"Hey, Commander," he said, turning his chair fully towards her. He gasped when she turned to look at him. Her face was blank, but her green eyes said a million things at once. If it were anyone other than Joker that was looking at her right now, they would think that her heart had frozen over and she just didn't care about the fallen. Joker saw everything she was hiding. Her eyes were glassy from unshed tears and there was an underlying fear.

"Joker…"

That was all it took. Before a tear could fall, Joker carefully removed himself from his chair and limped over to her. He pulled her by the hand into the cockpit and closed the door. The dog tags fell to the floor with multiple clangs and her hands clenched at his back when he wrapped her in his arms. Surprisingly, she'd left her armor in the airlock so it wasn't hurting him as he tightened his grip around her.

"Hey, hey now. Ary, calm down. Don't cry," he said, running his fingers through her short black hair. He hated to see her so broken. This was not the Commander Shepard that had saved the Citadel and lived to tell the tale. This was not the Commander Shepard that died and came back even stronger. This was a broken shadow of a woman that everyone thought was invincible. This was not the first time Joker had seen her walls come crashing down around her. When Ashley died, she had come to him late one night after the skeleton shift had started. She'd sat in the co-pilot chair and started talking about a story that Ashley had told her. By the end, she was crying so hard he still didn't know how the ending went. That was also the night that he had realized that he wanted to fix her and protect her.

"Joker, I should have died with them. Why did I get brought back, but they didn't? What makes me so special? Why am I still alive?" she cried into his chest. Her grip on the back of his uniform tightened as her tears soaked through. With every word she said, his heart broke. This woman's strength had been drained from her by just one assignment.

He slid his hands from her back and cupped her face. As he wiped her tears away with his thumbs, he said, "Ary, none of those people would want you to blame yourself. No one could have seen the attack coming and they were soldiers. They had signed up to give their lives. Yes, you were spared. Yes, you would be dead if it weren't for Cerberus. Hell, we'd all be dead if it wasn't for _you_." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before pressing his forehead to hers, knocking his hat off. "You may not know it, but everyone needs you. I need you. For two years, everyone thought you were dead. I don't know what the hell everyone else did, but I shut down. When I saw you…when I saw you float away, my heart stopped. You were the only person that I let get close to me and because of me you died. I spent two years thinking that I killed you. Damn it, I still do. What kind of idiot lets the woman he loves die because he was too stupid to leave his damn ship? For two years, I wished I could have gone down with the ship if it had saved you, or had just done something different. Ary, none of that was your fault. If anyone is to blame, it's all on me."

He opened his eyes to see Shepard watching him. Her face was streaked with wet trails, but her eyes held surprise. He felt more than saw her hand wipe away the tears that stained his face sometime in the middle of his speech. What had he said that would cause her surprise?

"Jeff," she'd never used his real name before, "I never blamed you. You're the only one that did. Like you said, no one could have seen the attack coming. No one could have stopped it. But, Jeff, I found my helmet down there. I had holes in my air supply. I suffocated, but it was never your fault. It was those damn Collectors. And I wasn't going to leave you behind. What kind of idiot leaves the man she loves behind on his damn ship?"

Now it was Joker's turn to be surprised. She cupped his face and brought her lips to his. It took him a moment to register what had just happened. He'd told her he loved her. She'd told him she loved him. But wasn't this a sad, mourning moment? He then remembered that she was kissing him and he pulled away. The hurt look on her face made him wince, but he didn't want to take advantage.

"No, Ary. You're upset and I don't–"

She cut him off with a brush of her lips and said, "Jeff, I'm always going to mourn those people because they had been a family to me. I am upset, but you made me see that I have reasons to live. People in the universe do need saving." She smiled a weak smile and ran the back of her hand across her face. "I have a pilot that needs to know that his commander loves him and wants to thank him for giving her strength. You're my rock and you're the only one that has even seen me break. You've always been here."

Shepard wrapped her arms around his neck and gently pulled him close and whispered a "thank you" in his ear. When she started to walk away, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him crushing his lips against hers. Fractured ribs be damned, he wanted to kiss this woman.

It seemed like eternity until they pulled apart. He was probably smiling like an idiot, but he didn't care. His fantasies just started to look like reality. Joker watched as she picked the dog tags and his hat off the floor before placing the hat on her own head. The gesture made his heart flip.

"I need to send these to Hackett. Meet me in the mess hall in an hour?" she asked as she walked to the door. He nodded stupidly. She smiled and left him without coherent thought.

"What just happened?" he asked to no one in particular and slumped into his chair. He winced at the pain in his ribs. "Seriously. What the hell just happened?"

Joker smiled and laughed as he turned back to the console. He could still feel her lips against his. _I guess that's a question that doesn't need answering._


End file.

Mass Effect, Angst, Romance